27 August 2022

This was a game where perhaps the performance was more important than the result as Rovers had a top two finish and a home play-off semi-final virtually sewn up and needed to ease key players back from injury and assess who will make way as even more are likely to return for the remaining league fixtures. Rovers eased to a comfortable victory thanks to five tries from Connor Jones. He returned in the second half to add two further tries to his first half hat-trick and lift his side back into the ascendancy with an outstanding performance.

After Craig Hall open the scoring, cutting through from close range with a neat dummy, Jones latched onto Junior Moors’ offload and scorched 20 metres before tripping from a half tackle. He quickly regained his feet and beat two further chasers on his way to the posts. Shortly after Morgan Smith scored off Hall’s pass, courtesy of a Tom Lineham offload, Jones raced through from another Moors offload and stepped around full back Ethan Bickerdike as though he wasn’t there. Jones added his third just before half-time when Hall broke 80 metres and passed inside to him. His seemed to be halted but broke through two attempted tackles to regain the impetus and score under the posts. In between Town got on the scoreboard when Jamie Doran stepped inside Smith and shrugged off Ben Hellewell’s tackle to plunge over, and Smith atoned soon after when he weaved his way through from close range. All tries were converted by Hall and Carl Forber respectively and Rovers entered the break with a comfortable 36-6 lead, allowing McDermott to make his changes.

Rovers extended their lead on the restart, Lineham retrieving a deep kick and cutting through with pace and power to race in from 90 metres, before Town halted the points avalanche then it back through Joe Kirkup, who strolled through a huge gap off Jordan Thompson’s pass. Rovers struggled to make headway before McDermott sent his front liners back on and Gadwin Springer returned from the bench to crash over. Town weren’t finished, however, and Doran’s delightful cut-out pass sent Marcus O’Brien in from close range. Rovers now had all their big guns back on the field and Jones added a fourth when he dived over from dummy half then made it five when he took Josh Hardcastle’s pass and scorched in from 30 metres. After surprisingly missing the earlier conversion Hall added the extras from touch and moved the score onto 64 when Moors sent Ryley Jacks in at the close.